Ohio LinuxFest 2011: Open Source Software Conference and Expo

Event Details
Type: 
Conference
Date: 
September 9, 2011 - 9:00am - September 11, 2011 - 5:00pm
Location: 
Greater Columbus Convention Center
400 North High Street
Columbus, OH 43215
United States

Ohio LinuxFest, one of the largest and best attended Linux and Open Source conferences in the U.S., will feature a Medical Track for the first time this year. The track will present a whole range of major developments in the open health community. Ohio LinuxFest (OLF) is an annual grassroots conference for the  Open Source community. Organized and run by volunteers, it will be held this year from September 9-11 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio. The conference includes an expo area for companies and open source software organizations to set up booths.

Read more about Ohio LinuxFest here.

The conference will include an Open Source Medical Track from 11 AM to 5 PM on Friday, September 9, featuring talks from noted authors, bloggers, and speakers such as Samuel Bowen, Dan Paoletti, and Ruth Suehle.

  • Susan Rose, who just completed a 25-year nursing career at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, will deliver a series of mini talks on various topics in the first hour and a half, including a collaborative presentation (with Andrew Barbash, MD) on open-source communications software for healthcare professionals. She will also demonstrate how the VA's open source VistA Electronic Health Record (EHR) platform works and review how to obtain free training in health information technology through the VA's online eHealth university.
  • Adam Goode, a site reliability engineer at Google, will give a presentation in which he explains digital pathology and demonstrates his software, OpenSlide, an open-source C library alternative to proprietary microscopy software.
  • Samuel Bowen, MD, will discuss the project management processes he and others used to create OpenEMR (and what they learned from failure), and the challenges in getting FOSS software certified for meaningful use and making it competitive against proprietary software. OpenEMR 4.1 has just received full 'meaningful use' certification as an ambulatory EMR. This is a major milestone, details of which can be found in this article from Open Health News.
  • Dan Paoletti, Interim CEO at Ohio Health Information Partnership, will talk about the future of the meaningful use of health IT, paying special attention to EMRs and interoperability of clinical data shared between providers, clinics, and hospitals.
  • Ruth Suehle, senior editor of opensource.com, will give a general talk about the current excitement in open-source health initiatives, from social integration to transparency and mobility.

The conference is free for anyone to attend, though its volunteer staff members ask for donations to the 501(c)(3) organization in the form of “Supporter” or “Professional” tier passes ($65 and $350, respectively). The higher-tier passes include, in addition to conference and expo access, a t-shirt and meal tickets, and the “Professional” pass grants access to OLF Institute classes on a variety of topics.

To register, visit: http://www.ohiolinux.org/register

To view the schedule, visit: http://www.ohiolinux.org/schedule

 

Comments

Exciting new presentation added!

I have the great pleasure to announce that Samuel Bowen, MD has just joined the September 9th Medical Track Line up for the Ohio Linux Fest. His topic will be "Taking OpenEMR to Meaningful Use Certification and Beyond" http://www.oemr.org/
Dr. Bowen will discuss the following and more.... -The project management process we used and how well they worked or didn’t work -The challenges in getting the certifying bodies to recognize FOSS software as a particular issue in their planning -The challenges faced in getting providers that are used to expensive systems to accept that a FOSS solution can meet and exceed the needs of their practices.

Thank you to Dr. Bowen and all the Medical Track speakers for their contributions in this exciting track at the Ohio Linux Fest.
Susan Rose MSN RN Ohio Linux Fest Medical Track Chairperson

OpenEMR receives 'meaningful use' certification

Susan, thank you for the update. Dr. Bowen's presentation will be doubly important. It's not just about OpenEMR now but the OpenEMR community was able to come together, create a 'Custodial Agent' organization and then pool their efforts and resources to obtain full Ambulatory 'Meaningful Use' certiciation. This shows how a community can work together and how comercial solution providers can collaborate, contribute their code, and compete for clients at the same time. I just wrote a feature article on this for Open Health News which can be read here. I believe OpenEMR's success transformative event for the open health community and hope that Ohio LinuxFest can feature this prominently.